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Will Self-Driving Cars Clog Our Highways? (go.com)
An anonymous reader writes: While self-driving cars may be safer and cheaper, the Associated Press warns they could also create massive traffic congestion. "The problem, say transportation researchers, is that people will use them too much." One auto industry expert predicts that self-driving cars will increase travel by those over 65, as well as those between 16 and 24, resulting in at least 2 trillion extra miles being driven each year. In addition, "Airlines also may face new competition as people choose to travel by car at speeds well over 100 mph between cities a few hundred miles apart instead of flying," and faster commute times could mean more urban sprawl as workers may spread into cheaper neighborhoods that are further from the city center.
Is it a surprise that when you invent a good thing, people will want to use it? You might as well say that if you invent smart phones, then cell networks will be hopelessly congested. Of course they will, which will create pressures to build out new networks.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
With the advent of self-driving vehicles, we also are embracing enhanced congestion avoidance. When we worry about an extra volume of vehicles on the roadways we must also take into account advanced congestion avoidance routing helping to mitigate that impact. I'm not suggesting that it's a non-issue, but we may not know the true effect for now. The real problems would come from inaccurate road mapping data causing poor route planning. Also, nobody looks forward to their suburb turned into a secondary thoroughfare that suddenly all the non-residents would use.
this new technology opens doors for me.
They drive themselves, but I think you still have to open the door yourself.
Lazy bastard.
Oh wait... not weeping... the other thing.
Over the last couple of decades the airline industry has been going well out of their way to make sure that flying is unpleasant an experience as possible. Granted, they've had no small amount of cooperation from the government. But I've not a doubt in the world that some properly-directed lobbying and cries of "impacting the bottom line" would have returned the TSA thugs to their former jobs delivering pizza and greeting people at walmart ten or more years ago, if the airlines weren't complicit. And even aside from the TSA goons, they've reduced seat pitch, cut amenities, overbooked flights, run flights behind schedule or cancelled them,, eliminated meal services, and started nickel-and-diming with every sort of added fee imaginable, all 100% on their own initiative.
I've no bloody sympathy for them at all. A pox upon their houses.
Imagine all the people...
Not only that, but autonomous vehicles could tell in advance which routes they would be using in the next few hours, so that large-scale traffic could adapt and no congestion would ever arise.
Ezekiel 23:20
Door to door time betwen Dallas and Houston favors a car. But the time and concentration excludes a car. You can fly up in the morning, taxi to the office, and taxi to the airport and fly home in the same time as driving, but you have to pay attention to the car the whole time driving..
Commute times will drop significantly when there are self-driving-only lanes, and the makers come up with a single protocol for communication, so they operate more like an indefinite length train than a line of cars.
Learn to love Alaska
3. In addition, "Airlines also may face new competition as people choose to travel by car at speeds well over 100 mph between cities a few hundred miles apart instead of flying," and faster commute times could mean more urban sprawl as workers may spread into cheaper neighborhoods that are further from the city center.
A: same as number 2, just because you have a self-driving car won't make it magically cheaper to drive somewhere. And unless we change laws, nobody's going to be legally driving at 100 mph between cities any time soon. Not with the "quality" of our current highways.
Yes, this one is definitely strange. I can already go to a city 8 hours away very cheaply if I'm willing to ride a bus. The one advantage that I see of a self-driving car would actually not affect congestion. With a self-driving "sleeper" car, I could get in at bedtime and wake up at my destination. This is currently low traffic time. Now self-driving cars are going to drastically change things but if people are smart about it, it might actually reduce traffic. For instance, my groceries could be delivered after rush hour is over or if it was a "refrigerated" car, it could deliver them in the middle of the night while I'm asleep. Congestion tends to work itself out but self-driving cars, drones, pods, etc... will drastically change everything even making specialized robots like a "toilet cleaning robot" that deliver themself more practical.
My home town still doesn't have a commercial airline.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
> 1. While self-driving cars may be safer and cheaper
> A: Self-driving cars are nowhere near cheaper at the moment.
If self-driving cars are really as much safer as Google's data and claims indicate, they will very quickly become cheaper to own and operate, even if the initial purchase price is slightly higher.
Think actuarial tables. Every self-driving car is loaded with sensors and data recorders. All of this data will eventually get into the hands of the insurance companies. And if Google's claims on self-driving cars prove to be true (And have we been given reason to believe otherwise?), the actuaries will update their tables, and premiums for manual-driving cars will skyrocket.
If you're an enthusiast, you'll probably still be able to take your Miata out on weekends. Just keep the annual milage below 5000. But everyday commuting? Going out for a night on the town? It'll be significantly cheaper to use self-drivers.
Imagine all the people...
More miles driven/ridden? Sure. However, those miles done by the 65+ crowd is probably not going to be during rush hour. Also, a lot of the longer trips are going to be done at night. Personally I'm looking forward to getting into the car in the evening, going to sleep and waking up at my vacation destination in the morning. As others have mentioned, self-driving only lanes will take care of most of the problem. That lane will be whipping along at 90+ with inches between each car.
All those loud and smelly horseless carriages are a menace and they scare the horses!
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Seriously, the costs of driving / mile will return to what we had back in the 60s, which was very low. What is needed now, is to raise taxes on gas/diesel slowly and invest into the infrastructure so that in the future, things will be safer.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The article makes wild assumptions about an increase of traffic without taking into account how much more efficiently self driving cars can make use of road infrastructure.
Try these:
While microwaves may be safer and cheaper than regular ovens, the alarmist press warns they could also create obesity "The problem, say kitchen appliance researchers, is that people will use them too much."
While computers may be safer and cheaper, the alarmist press warns they could also create over-forestation by replacing paper records "The problem, say accounting researchers, is that people will use them too much."
While televisions may be safer and cheaper than traveling to the theater, the alarmist press warns they could also create widespread job loss among stage actors "The problem, say media researchers, is that people will use them too much."
While wooden tables may be safer and cheaper, the alarmist press warns they could also create more expensive wood "The problem, say carpentry researchers, is that people will use them too much."
While cotton mills may be safer and cheaper, the alarmist press warns they could also create unemployment "The problem, say union researchers, is that people will use them too much."
Are there any random products you couldn't fill into this sentence? Very meaningful speculation... why, it's almost Luddite....
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
These people aren't thinking big picture. Forget a fleet of self owned self-driving cars. Yes, self-car ownership is a staple of American life right now, but it's death knell has been sounded.
Imagine a fleet of hundreds of self driving buses, vans, et cetera. Now cross that with Uber -- request a ride, and you get put on a list of stops where the bus is going to go. Picture having to wait no more than 15 minutes for a self-driving public transportation vehicle to take you anywhere in your city, with algorithms picking the most efficient route to get who needs a ride, when they need it. Who is going to buy their own car when you can just get a public transportation pass and go anywhere?
Hell, what government is going to allow people to drive their own cars when self-driving vehicles can drive for them? And when even self-driving self-owned cars turn out to be a detriment to the self-driving public transportation, welp...
We don't consider horses when designing modern roadways, outside of some very specific scenarios. We're entering an era where considering manually driven cars are going to become a similar relic of the past.
By platooning, SDCs can drive much closer together than HDCs, and they also help to smooth out the "accordion effect" in stop-and-go traffic. It is unlikely that they will increase congestion. It is far more likely that they will help relieve congestion.
Large fixed-route public buses will be replaced by small self-driving vans, with flexible on-demand routing. As public transit becomes faster and more convenient, more people will use it, reducing congestion even more.
Parking is the biggest issue. When you go downtown, you can't find a parking spot. But that's not an issue with self driving cars, you just tell it to circle the block at low speed for 4 hours while you're in the mall. Now imagine everyone doing that downtown.
The problem with parking isn't that there's no parking, it's that there's no parking sufficiently close to where you want to go that you don't mind walking the remaining distance. With self-driving cars that can drop you off then go park themselves, and be summoned when you are ready to leave, this won't be a problem.
Just the fact that a SDC can drive much closer means that at least 2-3 times as many vehicles can fit in the same stretch of road as before. Combine that with the ability to replace traffic signals, stop signs, and it means faster driving overall. Highway intersections that require multi-level construction can be replaced by a simple four-way, with vehicle computers adjusting speed so they can go through safely and at highway speeds.
Of course, there is one reason why SDCs will be overall better than HDCs: Wrecks. Lower the chance of those happening, it it will help immensely. There is also the fact that SDCs don't get drunk, tripping, high, or in a state that renders them unusable for driving. This is arguably the chief cause of wrecks, so by that factor being further mitigates, it will help traffic flow and overall commute times significantly.
Right now all that self-driving cars are clogging is our blogs and forums. It will be awhile before we know what they'll do in the real world. A variable, still to be determined 'awhile', mind you.
Where we live, our address wasn't even on the online mapping software until about six years ago. I'm not that expectant that a 'self driving car' will figure everything out immediately. Though I suppose they will 'learn' obscure locations by one or two manual drives there in 'learn mode.'
If you were single why not just buy a self-driving minivan and go wherever to sleep for the night? If you could rig it with some kind of simple shower and use an RV hookup ever week or so (that could be automated to happen while you were at work) it would be a better arrangement than most cramped first apartments...
The other thing to consider also, is that only a lot of miles built up in self-driving cars will give society the trust it needs to go ahead with the next step - self-driving flying cars (or drones if you will).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You won't want self-driving cars to circle the block wasting juice. Each ride will be a separate rental from your chosen company's fleet. As you check out at the mall or the market, you summon a new ride. Released cars will rest in buffer lots near shopping areas until someone needs a new ride. These will differ from conventional parking lots in not having to be walking distance from shopping, and not being associated with specific shops. Instead, they will be at "summoning distance" from all shopping in a given area. Much less city land devoted to parking, because none of it has to be for "your" car. There will be no more inner-city crapola about "the rightmost ten spaces in this lot is reserved for customers of Bertha's Kitty Boutique."
The summary also indicates that it would likely REDUCE congestion, at least in some areas.
Suppose right now my 20-mile commute takes 35 minutes, so for 35 minutes I'm causing part of the congestion. I'm in your way from 8:00 to 8:35. The summary says self-driving cars will likely be able to drive much faster (perhaps in what used to be HOV lanes). If my car goes faster, that means the 20-mile commute takes less time. I'd only be on the road(and in your way) for 20 minutes rather than 35 minutes.
All good points, but the elephant in this particular room is unexpected emergent behavior of a large coordinated system. If SDCs are centrally controlled, there's a single point of failure that will make EVERYONE late for work at unexpected intervals. If they are more distributed in their control systems, interesting (not in a good way) interactions will develop that cause unexpected system failures and disruptions.
Overall, I expect SDCs will improve the current state of automotive transport, but I don't expect them to be the panacea that everyone likes to paint a picture of.
Haven't you used Uber? It tells you, with pretty high accuracy, how long it will take for a car to show up, how long the ride will take, and what the cost will be. You can summon your ride as you sit down for breakfast and by the time you are done it will be there. If you are out at dinner, you order the car when you get the check and it's there pretty much when you are ready for it. Surge pricing is a wonderful incentive to get people using cars when the roads are less busy, or to take a short trip to a train rather than to pay for a full commute. I think it is a great primary solution, and a natural evolution from services like Zipcar.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Also, SDCs can park much closer together, since the door doesn't need to open to disgorge humans, so they can park with only inches between cars. If they can retract their mirrors (or if the mirrors are replaced with cameras), then they can park even closer. If they have car-to-car communication, then they can park head-to-tail as well as side-by-side, and cooperate to make room for a summoned car to leave. A typical parking lot could hold 2 or 3 times as many SDCs as HDCs.
Your point applies only if SDCs are centrally controlled. If they are each an independent node that communicates with each other in a P2P or C2C method depending on massively decreased reaction times and localized road information that makes them much less vulnerable to a single point of failure while still retaining the bulk of the advantages. I foresee a hybrid of the 2 systems being the end solution, but I also bought Betamax, and laserdisc so who knows
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
No!
They will not clog our highways.
They will clog our traffic jams.
Was that a trick question?
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
There were no commercial airlines on September 12, 2001.
Yes there was, I flew from Auckland to Wellington that day.
And if Google's claims on self-driving cars prove to be true (And have we been given reason to believe otherwise?), the actuaries will update their tables, and premiums for manual-driving cars will skyrocket.
It's more likely that the premiums for self-driving cars will plummet. The factor that will cause them to skyrocket is that if every self-driving car is covered up to $10M(say) by the manufacturer, and they're proving to be that safe, is that society won't be satisfied with the $100k/300k, $250k/500k policies most people are running around with now, and require that private drivers carry $10M or so themselves (probably pausing at $1M, $5M, and such). While each subsequent dollar of coverage is cheaper than the first, so boosting liability to $1M won't double the cost over $500k, it will be a price increase, and you're looking that each dollar of insurance will be, say, around 10% the cost for a self-driver vs a person-operated. So it's a contest that the human driver can't win.
Especially for higher risk drivers. I figure known drunk drivers will very quickly find themselves in self-drivers. But what about new drivers? You'll see teenagers placed in self-drivers for the safety and insurance cut. Thing is, very few will subsequently become drivers. Because those high initial rates will always be waiting for them outside of some select occupations.
I don't read AC A human right
I don't live in a place with Uber. If I did, I wouldn't use them; I'm not convinced their drivers are vetted enough to be safe. Also I wouldn't want to encourage them in their failure to find real jobs. Or clog the roads.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
You won't want self-driving cars to circle the block wasting juice. Each ride will be a separate rental from your chosen company's fleet.
This should be marked insightful - but you'll probably be pilloried. Think Uber, now think Uber without drivers. Now think vehicles being dispatched via the internet via an application on your smartphone.
Now think a driverless car version of surge pricing, as well with with a hierarchy of plans, where the more oyu pay, the better, and quicker service you'll get.
The legions of slashdot users that think they are going to all have their personal driverless vehicle are not thinking this through. As driverless vehicles take over, the only people left that know how to drive will be in rural areas.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
So when you walk out of the mall, the next car will pull up a few seconds after you request it. If demand is under predicted, you may wait a few more seconds, but not 10 minutes.
That works until you combine multiple trips where you're picking things up in different places. If you don't have a dedicated vehicle you have to haul all that stuff around. I routinely will take a bicycle or two somewhere, go for a long ride, then stop a few places on the way home for shopping (sometimes bulk). So either I leave the stuff (which can add up to quite a lot) in the car and wait for the car, or I haul it around with me (unworkable). Parking lots local to the shopping work much better for my use case.
I have a lot of stuff in my car, some could be extraneous or standard with a car service sure. The rest not so much. Standard safety bits could be in every one bout I doubt it to many people are clueless but realy the last thing I want to make a long drive through the desert in is a fleet car. Thats basic traffic safety and lets not get stranded can not picture a fleet car with duct tape, bailing wire, and enough tools to limp back to civilization. Past that you have first aid, I can pack a lot of stuff in a car kit including an AED, I dont see some fleet service stocking them standard, thats also a decent selection of OTC meds like headache and GI but also a supply of scripts. Basic provisions so thats a few days rations + more immediate snacks and water. Emergency clothing a spare pair of sweatpants and sweatshirt for everybody, more stuff for the baby, and rain gear all around. Lets not even start on baby's thats a lot of stuff all in itself. Simple bits like cell phone chargers and flashlights. In any event I'm got the better part of a duffel bag of stuff going around with me even more in the truck that I'm not wanting to take with me all the time to go vehicle to vehicle. This whole it will be a service is some sort of city folk thing that would not serve the other 99% of the land mass (or whatever the city to non city percentage is). Their only concern is parking and the mall it seems, not sure why I would want to go to the mall and parking is easy just stop living in the hell hole that is a city.
No sir I dont like it.
I believe this was Uber's game all along:
1) Introduce 'taxi' system at lower price point
2) Collect data, prefect swarm algorithm
3) Add 'autopilot' features to cars so that they can go to a fare automaticly
4) Remove drivers entirely
5) Switch for an audible-like subscription plan where I can have X trips for Y$ each month. Utilize swarm data from #2 to 'hover' cars where needed during peak hours so that service time is quick
6) profit!
On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
A car park with cars parked right next to each other will need to be defragged.
You can summon your ride as you sit down for breakfast and by the time you are done it will be there. If you are out at dinner, you order the car when you get the check and it's there pretty much when you are ready for it.
So in my family of four, we could in theory order four robot cars (we each work and go to school at different locations). In my use case, that makes 4 times as many vehicles on the road. A road that is already over capacity today.
I think you missed the point of TFA
Elevator travel is usually point-to-point. You get in (carrying your luggage), you get out (still carrying your luggage). Also, travel distances (and times) are quite short, if you need multiple trips to get all your luggage, you can, assuming you have a friend or someone else to guard your luggage
Car may be used for point-to-point travel (same as elevator), but can also be used for multidrop travel to pick up more luggage at each stop, drop off luggage at each stop or a combination of both. Also, travel distances and times are usually longer than with an elevator, so it may be inconvenient to convert your multidrop journey to star shaped journey.
For example, I want to visit 3 stores to buy some items and bring them all back home. The stores are closer to each other than to my home, so it is inefficient to go to store A, then home, then to store B etc.
So which one are they worried about?
People use them too much and traffic grinds to a halt?
Or people choose to use them instead of flying because they can go over 100 mph on highways?
It's not going to work both ways, guys.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
Lol.. so now my child might be sitting alone in a car with another random passenger? This gets better and better.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
I'm not worried about getting stranded where there is cellphone reception. Worried about getting stranded where I'm looking at ham radio or sat based communications. I doubt the fleet cars will be putting in sat uplinks.
While everything fits in the duffel it's not something that you want to drag around with you vs leaving in the car.
No sir I dont like it.
Also, SDCs can park much closer together, since the door doesn't need to open to disgorge humans, so they can park with only inches between cars. If they can retract their mirrors (or if the mirrors are replaced with cameras), then they can park even closer. If they have car-to-car communication, then they can park head-to-tail as well as side-by-side, and cooperate to make room for a summoned car to leave. A typical parking lot could hold 2 or 3 times as many SDCs as HDCs.
That's how a freight yard works for the railroad. Of course, if the car is in the middle of the line, and you need to move 100 cars to get to yours, it will be about as efficient as a railroad trying to cherry pick a single car out of the yard. It simple won't happen.
A car park with cars parked right next to each other will need to be defragged.
No problem. We'll just create journalling parking systems.
(Score: -1, Stupid)
Parent is correct. There were no commercial US flights on 9/12/2001, but the rest of the world still moved along.